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An unofficial news blog for Neil Young fans from Thrasher's Wheat with concert and album updates, reviews, analysis, and other Rock & Roll ramblings. Separating the wheat from the chaff since 1996.
by thrasher@PermaLink: 1/19/2013 10:08:00 PM
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Labels: crazy horse, everest, neil young
by thrasher@PermaLink: 1/19/2013 11:59:00 AM
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“Travelin’”—a previously unreleased recording that Stills made at age 17 in Costa Rica.Here's a preview track Stephen Stills Unearths 'Forty-Nine Reasons' Demo Song Premiere | Music News | Rolling Stone.
CSN performing “Girl From The North Country” in New York City during a sold-out five-night run at the Beacon Theater that closed the group’s acclaimed 2012 world tour.
“No-Name Jam,” a 1970 recording of Stills in London trading guitar licks with his friend Jimi Hendrix.
“Black Coral,” a song Stills and Young released as a duo in 1976—the version here features all four members of CSNY.
“The Treasure” offers a peek into Stills’ process—originally released in 1973 on Manassas’s self-titled debut, this version was recorded by Stills three years earlier with bassist Calvin Samuels and drummer Conrad Isidore during sessions for Stephen Stills 2.
There is also a newly edited version of Stills performing “Cuba Al Fin” at the Havana Jam in 1979.
CSN singing “No Tears Left” in 1997 at the Fillmore in San Francisco, and CSNY on stage in 2002 at Madison Square Garden with Memphis Horns Booker T. Jones and Donald “Duck” Dunn covering Otis Redding’s “Ole Man Trouble.
(Thanks! You'll be supporting Thrasher's Wheat.)Labels: stephen stills
by thrasher@PermaLink: 1/18/2013 04:28:00 PM
7 comments
Looking Forward
So. Whatever happened to…….Thanks Mark! Never "Spook the Horse"!
“Toast”?
Every once in a while, generally at times when I’m sitting at the computer, working and writing, I’ll be listening to random records and my mind will, invariably, start to wander. I’ll pull a Neil Young record off the shelf, often one that I’ve not listened to in a while and, all too often, get lost in a personal world of memories and thoughts that often relate solely to that record or just a single song.
Today, with a crisp covering of the softest snow lying on the ground, coupled with wonderful bursts of watery sunshine and with curious thoughts of lost loves playing in the back of my mind, I took a trip towards “Winterlong” ~ I’m nothing other than obvious and predictable…..
Yesterday, as I was sitting at the desk, gazing out of the window in the vain hope of some wintery inspiration, I decided to reach for “Are You Passionate”….and that, in turn, lead me to wondering (once again) about the fabled, mythical album entitled “Toast”.
As “Goin’ Home” faded away and the back sleeve of the record showed that piece of paper with “Gateway of Love” writ large upon it, I wondered, more and more, if there will ever be a time that this record, this oft-discussed yet still largely-mysterious record, will ever see the light of day….
With Crazy Horse making some incredible music in the past 12 months, on stage and also, of course, on record (I’d argue ‘til I was blue in the face, that both “Americana” and “Psychedelic Pill” rate as two of Neil Young’s very finest discs, period, with or without the Horse) it feels as though right now is perhaps the perfect opportunity by which to unleash “Toast” on the world. That’s the perfect opportunity to me of course….nothing appears to be so straightforward and simple in Neil Young World…..
On paper though, it does feel as though the timing could be ideal ~ sales of both the new Crazy Horse albums are on the wane, we still don’t know what Camp Young has in store (if anything) for the “Alchemy” shows from the North American tour of last year ~ teasing the Rust List is all very well Archives Guy but people will get tired of that pretty quickly ~ so to keep the pot bubbling along nicely, an Archive series release of a record often discussed in hushed, learned tones would seem like a good way to keep NYCH product out there.
I’ve lost count of how many years ago it was that, pre-Bridge, Neil Young was said to have been listening to the finished version of “Toast” in one of his old car outside the LincVolt garage (someone on the staff there coughed that one) ~ maybe four or five years ago? That would seem about right as Neil Young discussed the release of the record with “Rolling Stone” in 2008……
“Toast is done. It's an amazing listening experience. It was recorded in 5.1. It's a mind blowing record, and I don't think it's a commercial record, but it's great rock and roll, very moody, kind of jazzy. It was recorded in the same place where Coltrane was recorded, so there's a lot of heavy stuff in there. All of the live ambience for everything was all recorded, so the whole thing has got a massive sound about it. I want to have a premier of it that's in a large art gallery with speakers in all four corners of the room, and huge speakers and really spend some time on the acoustics of the room, so you could have two or three hundred people in there that are in the middle of the sweet spot listening to this thing all around. So you came to a real listening experience that you wouldn't be able to get in any other location than right there.”
We are all well aware that we listen to a man who’s restlessness and creative energies in recent years have meant that barely one project can be finished before he goes whizzing right along to a new one, sometimes to the detriment of all the projects concerned. But, in 2008, by Neil Young’s own admission, “Toast” was ready to go.
It must be assumed (rightly or wrongly) that what has stopped “Toast” in the five years that have followed is indeed that same restless outlook and continuing quest for something I suspect we can’t quite see in the same way that the feted musician can.
The sound and the tone, maybe they don’t fit with what Neil Young wants to hear anymore. The oft-quoted “dark” feel….is it that? Or is it the inner-self looking back once too often on previous works that may have had an impact on any potential release?
However, much retro-focus appears to have been employed with the book projects and the assorted, numerous Crazy Horse sessions that yielded those two marvellous records last year ~ “Waging Heavy Peace” and the two albums unashamedly (inevitably) look backwards rather than forwards, so retrospective thoughts and ideas aren’t too troubling it would seem.
So perhaps “Toast” was very much then and “Psychedelic Pill” is very much now.
But (there’s always a “but” right?) the majority of Crazy Horse live sets in 2012 showed a distinct and swift regression to both the early 1990’s and the late 1970’s in terms of both the set lists and, to a degree, the stage appearance (for reasons known only, once again, to Neil Young and his fellow workers ~ perhaps it actually means nothing at all, it was just for fun and its another little curveball thrown out there to make us read more in to something than is actually there).
Maybe the songs on “Toast” don’t fit with anything anymore, perhaps too downbeat and too dark for where the muse is taking their author now. But you could argue that one listen to “Ramada Inn” would suggest that, while not overtly on the dark side, the song possesses an unrestrained air and clouds of downbeat melancholy pervade every single second of the song which, from what little we know of the tracks that may feature on it, are surely the staples of “Toast”?
Who knows what Neil Young and the band have been and will be doing in the four month spell of downtime between the end of “Alchemy” in North America and picking it up again for the Australia and New Zealand shows that come along in a couple of months. There are a host of ongoing projects (not least Archives 2) to attend to (presumably after a post-tour vacation) but where does “Toast” figure in all that? Does it figure at all? Sadly, I’m inclined to wager a hefty, downbeat “no”.
The interest in the record, both through the core fan base and the media, would be high (look at how much was made of the 2008 online statements and quotes regarding the impending arrival of a “lost” Neil Young record). “Toast” would certainly shift some units and, as mentioned earlier, it would undoubtedly keep the focus of attention on this most marvellous of bands, the ultimate vehicle for conveying Neil Young’s sound and groove.
Because of the mystique that has grown and grown and which now envelops this 12-13 year old record like a darkened shroud, column inches will certainly be plentiful. However, would that bother Neil Young? Again, I’d wager a hefty “no” (though it would, presumably, be of greater interest to Reprise Records).
But is that enough to let the album loose? Honestly, again, no, of course it isn’t.
There are core reasons why, five years on from those numerous quotes to the media from Neil Young, “Toast” languishes in the vaults at Broken Arrow Ranch. Reasons that we won’t ever know. Could there be just one fundamental reason why it remains on the shelf? One that goes above and beyond even the sheer bloody-mindedness of this relentless, project-hopping musician? Maybe…..maybe…..
The guessing games will go on and on….but there seems to be every chance that another live Neil Young & Crazy Horse album will come along in the next few months ~ one that re-treads the old ground covered by “Weld” and “Live Rust”, whilst (presumably) updating things a little with the choice, killer cuts from the “Psychedelic Pill” record.
Do we need yet another live Neil Young & Crazy Horse album, even when the playing from the 2012 Alchemy shows (nee The Past, The Present & The Future tour) was as stellar as it was from time to time last year?
It could be argued that any Neil Young & Crazy Horse record is a “wanted” item for fans, but I’d contend that, right now, unless we had a third new studio album from Neil Young & Crazy Horse (one that maybe married/utilised some of the recorded material that was made before “Le Noise” ~ the Crazy Horse version of “Hitchhiker” is reported to be one of the very finest cuts they have ever laid down), I would be far happier to finally have “Toast” see the light of day, some 13 years after recording, than to see a fifth (or sixth, depending on what you count) NYCH live record.
“It's got everything that the best Crazy Horse albums have had” Neil Young said once about “Toast”.
It would be remiss not to ask for the evidence to, finally, be forthcoming…..
Labels: crazy horse, neil young, toast
by thrasher@PermaLink: 1/18/2013 07:31:00 AM
7 comments
Labels: neil young
by thrasher@PermaLink: 1/16/2013 06:43:00 PM
16 comments
"Danny Whitten was the focal point of Crazy Horse, but he was also the fault line that ran through it.
Like many a troubled genius, the greatness of his art was partly a product of his own tragic life. He left us with a slice of magic in this album but also with the thought that he could have given us so much more had he given himself a chance to."
"In my humble opinion, Crazy Horse is to Neil Young what The Band was to Bob Dylan. As perfect a complement as tequila and salt."
"Danny Whitten was the Brian Jones of Crazy Horse."
Neil Young: Somehow I feel like I've surfaced out of some kind of murk. And the proof will be in my next album. Tonight's The Night, I would say, is the final chapter of a period I went through. Rolling Stone: Why the murky period? Neil Young: Oh, I don't know. Danny's death probably tripped it off. Danny Whitten [leader of Crazy Horse and Young's rhythm guitarist/second vocalist]. It happened right before the Time Fades Away tour. He was supposed to be in the group. We [Ben Keith, steel guitar; JackN itzche, piano; Time Drummond, bass; Denny Buttrey, drums; and Young] were rehearsing with him and he just couldn't cut it. He couldn't remember anything. He was too out of it. Too far gone. I had to tell him to go back to L.A. "It's not happening, man. You're not together enough." He just said, "I've got nowhere else to go, man. How am I gonna tell my friends?" And he split. That night the coroner called me from L.A. and told me he'd ODed. That blew my mind. Fucking blew my mind. I loved Danny. I felt responsible. And from there, I had to go right out on this huge tour of huge arenas. I was very nervous and ...insecure. Tonight's The Night is like an OD letter. The whole thing is about life, dope and death. When we [Nils Lofgren, guitars and piano, Talbot, Molina and Young] played that music we were all thinking of Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry, two close members of our unit lost to junk overdoses. The Tonight's The Night sessions were the first time what was left of Crazy Horse had gotten together since Danny died. It was up to us to get the strength together among us to fill the hole he left.
"We knew it was coming, but it was a shock," says Talbot of Whitten, who left Crazy Horse in 1971 due to his problems. "But that album wasn't solely about Danny. It included some of the other good friends we lost -- Bruse Berry, who was one of our roadies. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. "Danny was the topper. That was the one that hit too close to home." Talbot says he remembers flying to Ontario and playing three gigs on the university circuit before the band embarked on a week-long European tour. "It was like an Irish wake," he recalls. "There was a lot of celebrating, a lot of drinking, and being rowdy instead of playing out the darkness."Whiten's replacement in Crazy Horse, Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro, recalls Danny Whitten in an interview in interview with Undercover (November 2003) by Paul Cashmere:
"I never felt I could replace Danny and to this day I can't play like Danny. Every once in a while Neil will say 'you should listen to the record' or Billy will say 'just listen to what Danny did'. I try not to. Danny had what he did and I think it is very special. He was a great singer and a great songwriter and he played guitar a certain way. That's just not what I do. I play the way I play. I remember when I first met Neil. 'On The Beach' had just come out. It had 'Turnstile Blues', 'Vampire Blues' and I remember telling Neil (and I don't know how I had the balls to say it) but I said 'you know, you've got a lot of blues on your record. You should be rockin' and having fun and seeing chick's asses swaying in the audience' (laughs). So that is the kind of approach I brought."
"Danny Whitten was a man out of time; his artful, uncluttered songs seem steeped more in the verities of early rock & roll than in the convolutions of the late Sixties. Listen to the unabashed balladic sentimentality of 'I Don't Want to Talk About It' and the grinding R&R basics of 'Dirty, Dirty' and 'Downtown.' The last of these, if you pay close attention, is a shocker -- an upbeat ode to cruising for drugs that sounds like a West Coast complement to the Velvet Underground's 'I'm Waiting for the Man.' The Eagles get all the credit for exposing the dark side of the California dream, but you can peek at the lobby of the Hotel California on Crazy Horse, too. The opening track, Nitzsche's chugging, bluesy 'Gone Dead Train,' reveals itself as an elaborate metaphor for impotence; the troubled Whitten lays his cards on the tempestuous, self-revelatory 'Look at All the Things'; and Lofgren's stormy 'Beggars Day' can been interpreted as his fatalistic view of Whitten's drug problems ('All your mercy can't save me'). Danny Whitten died at twenty-nine of a heroin overdose on November 18th, 1972. It's all documented on Tonight's the Night, Neil Young's elegy for Whitten and fellow drug casualty, roadie Bruce Berry, but it was foreshadowed on Crazy Horse."
Tonight's The Night liner notes"The death of Neil's discovery and friend, Danny Whitten seems to have affected him deeply. Since 'The Needle & the Damage Done' most of Neil's songs about Danny's death reflect his guilt complex. Neil seemed to fall back into an even deeper depression. Then he began drinking, became sentimental and generally intolerable for anyone who had anything to do with him. It's said that those around him treated him with great caution for fear of provoking him, causing him to retreat and become a recluse. During this evening at the Rainbow, Neil makes particular reference to Miami Beach where he was safe from external influences and where a highly emotional and introverted process went its course."Another fascinating aspect to the original vinyl album was the writing in the run out groove. On Side A the phrase "Hello Waterface" was written. And on Side B the phrase "Goodbye Waterface". There's been a great deal of speculation and rumor about what these cryptic phrases might mean. One theory is that it refers to either Danny Whitten or Bruce Berry. If this is the case, "Waterface" most likely refers to Whitten. Whitten has been described as an emotional person who was prone to bursts of sobbing. Hence, Danny's crying might be the "Waterface". The TTN liner notes refer to "BB", which is clearly Bruce Berry. The note includes the line "Tell Waterface to put it in his lung and not in his vein." This line is an anti-heroin reference and speaks to Neil's loss of Crazy Horse bandmate Danny Whitten and long time roadie Bruce Berry's heroin overdose deaths. Danny & The Memories From Neil Young's Tonight's the Night Liner Notes:
DANNY WHITTEN ------------- 'Ladies and Gentlemen. There is one member of the band for whom I feel a special affection. One day he came and knocked at my cellar door in Washington DC where the president of the U.S. lives... Impeach the president, and... eh... What a situation. WHAT A SITUATION, ladies and gentlemen... where's my cigar? I won't be seeing you again for a few years so I can do what I like! Ha ha ha'. The audience laughs. 'I'm going to try and play something now. I've got a song about a 'straight dog' who took no drugs, no hard drugs, nothing at all. Believe me...according to some rumours I'm dead already, but I'm standing here...believe in nature. I'm not Catholic but I believe in a sort of confession....here tonight, ladies and gentlemen. I want to sing a song for Danny...Whitten who can't be with us tonight. I can feel the Jose Cuervo but I think that what I want to say is getting across. I'm talking slowly about a good friend of mine and I don't want to discredit his name. This is a song for him. Perhaps I'll sing fifty songs for him this evening. You never know...' The death of Neil's discovery and friend, Danny Whitten seems to have affected him deeply. Since 'The Needle & the Damage Done' most of Neil's songs about Danny's death reflect his guilt complex. Neil seemed to fall back into an even deeper depression. Then he began drinking, became sentimental and generally intolerable for anyone who had anything to do with him. It's said that those around him treated him with great caution for fear of provoking him, causing him to retreat and become a recluse. During this evening at the Rainbow, Neil makes particular reference to Miami Beach where he was safe from external influences and where a highly emotional and introverted process went its course. 'Don't Be Denied', the song for Danny develops into a terrible, deep-reaching event. The playing is awful but the emotion is great Neil is incapable of putting any structure into his guitar-playing instead, he comes across as a man possessed, hair flying, pounding his guitar, jumping and screaming: 'Oh friend of mine, don't be denied, don't be denied, don't be denied.' Confused, he comes up to the microphone and begins to talk gently: 'You buy a newspaper on the street in the morning, and you open it at page two straightaway because you can't read page one....photos of all the people....now I'm in the desert....The Americans are there. Let's think about the desert this evening. In the desert there's a lion, some people are standing on one side on the lion and some on the other. Everybody knows what I'm talking about, so everybody can draw their own conclusions. We're going to play a song, ladies and gentlemen, to try to cheer ourselves up. It wasn't very good in the desert was it? I didn't like it much there anyway'.This interview with Nils Lofgren was originally published in the Neil Young magazine `Broken Arrow', issue 62, January 1996:
Q: `Tonight's The Night' was recorded shortly after the deaths of Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry. Was that a traumatic time? LOFGREN: There were a lot of tough emotional feelings... Danny was the one who asked me to join Crazy Horse to make their first album which I think is just a great record. Jack Nitzsche and I both joined to make the first Crazy Horse record and Danny came back east - he was gonna try to join my band Grin. But by that point he was so sick that he just couldn't hold up. So, the `Tonight's The Night' record - at the same time there was a dark cloud over all of this we made a point of enjoying ourselves too. We had a good time. We'd do it like a show - we'd get up and really go after something and perform it and then stop, go take a break, go shoot some pool, come back, do it again, on and off until the early morning and then we'd, you know, head off and meet up again later. So, at the same time it was really sad to lose Danny and Bruce... I also remember feeling very grateful that I had these friends, that I was alive and that I was being included in such a special project. And there was a real sense of family in that sense despite the obvious sadness due to the loss of Danny and Bruce."Danny just wasn't happy. It just all came down on him. He was engulfed by this drug. That was too bad. Because Danny had a lot to give, boy. He was really good." - Neil Young, to his biographer, Jimmy McDonough in Shakey. Crazy Horse Danny Whitten "I Don't Want to Talk About It" Thanks to the tribute website Danny Whitten - His Life - His Music. C'mon baby, let's go downtown. "What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood" As Melanie Y wrote: "Why do the most beautiful souls among us suffer the greatest pain? RIP, Danny"
Labels: danny whitten, neil young
by thrasher@PermaLink: 1/16/2013 07:00:00 AM
2 comments
Innovation is not for the faint of heart, nor for those who lack the capacity for joy.Full article on Neil Young: Waging Heavy Innovation - Forbes.
Leading an innovation culture means living inside of chaos, while maintaining a focus on cardinal points; operating within demanding goals and financial requirements while remaining open to diverse and contradictory points of view; sometimes “losing your way to find your way.” Above all else, though, authentic leadership is about experiencing and celebrating the joy of innovation. And if you are looking for a good role model — someone who best exemplifies all the traits of innovation leadership — you need look no further than Neil Young.
There are countless books, monographs, studies, articles and blogs addressing the issues of leadership and innovation, and more coming every day. But Neil Young’s recently released autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, may serve as the best innovation case study out there. For those who study the “how” of innovation, and in particular the often mysterious challenge of leading innovation, Young’s life story captures it all in one compelling read.
Labels: neil young
by thrasher@PermaLink: 1/15/2013 08:06:00 AM
0 comments
Neil Young: “If a song happens, it happens.More on Patti Smith Interviews Neil Young at BookExpo America in New York City.
If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t matter. That’s why I will write a lot of material, and why I’ll suddenly not write any material — because there is no reason to write it. It has to come to me — and if it doesn’t come to me, I don’t want it. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to look for it.”
...
"I really hate things that people work on.
There’s nothing about music that should be working on it, nothing about lyrics that should be working on it — trying to be something that you’re not, trying to act like somebody that you think is good.”
...
“I had to avoid all Dylan records, because I am such a sponge.
If I listen to it too much, I would start being that. I knew that that would disturb what I was doing. I admired what he did so much — the lyrics, and the way he sang, and the melodies, and the groove and the band that he played with — especially (the late guitarist Mike) Bloomfield. There were all of these great musicians that supported him. I had to ignore it. I just had to stay away from it.”
Labels: neil young, patti smith
by thrasher@PermaLink: 1/14/2013 07:05:00 AM
8 comments
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